


wrap your hands around my throat (i won't mind)

by LanHua



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternative Universe - Umbrella Academy, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, i just love writing fe3h character dynamics, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26939362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanHua/pseuds/LanHua
Summary: Over countless years, Felix has worked his way up in the ranks of Temps Aeternalis, traveling through time and space to become one of their top agents. Some may call him a workaholic, but he sees his existence as nothing more than a small cog in a larger machine. Without question, the organization is his past, present, and future. It's not until he receives his latest assignment - a portrait of a winking red-haired man with a sinful smile - that his world gets much more complicated.Umbrella Academy AU
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. <3 Basically I'm cramming all of my hyperfixations since COVID-19 started into a fic. The fic title is based on the lyrics to Be Your Shadow by The Wombats.

The stale air fills with the soft, incessant clicking sound of typewriter keys. Felix hates this part - the stacks of paperwork that come with finishing an assignment. It was always so tedious to have to capture his work in every minute detail; everything from the time and place to his method of execution had to be recorded. And for how long Felix had been working at Temps Aeternalis, there were only so many combinations of inky letters he could arrange on a page before all of the reports blurred together. At one point long ago in his career, he had hoped he would eventually rise above the soul-sucking administration that came with the territory of their work, but it seemed like only those who had access to the highest floors of headquarters managed to evade it.

He shifts slightly in his seat, the hard metal chair squeaking beneath him. His slender fingers stab at the typewriter keys as he wonders why they couldn't bother to get more comfortable chairs. They may still be 20 years away from the modern ergonomic designs that Felix favored, but what was the use of time travelling if it meant he couldn't take a nice Herman Miller chair back with him.

"You missed an indent there." A voice interrupts his thoughts. Felix sighs, not even turning to look at the agent who had partnered with him on his most recent assignment. "It's not acceptable, you know. You may not take pride in your work, but I'm not going to let your absentmindedness reflect poorly on me."

Felix finally turns, his narrowed eyes landing on a petite, white-haired girl who stood with her arms crossed. "I suppose they'll just have to fire me then," he replies flatly, ignoring the way she bristles in response. Instead, he leans over to pull the third and final sheet of his report out of the typewriter. From the corner of his eye, he can see her own papers crinkle ever so slightly in her hand.

Lysithea von Ordelia was new to Temps Aeternalis, relatively speaking. It was like she had appeared out of thin air one day, stalking up to Felix and informing him that they had been given an assignment together. He had just returned to headquarters, the blood not having even dried on his clothing. He had only raised an eyebrow in response, grudgingly intrigued when she ignored his disheveled state in favor of telling him stay out of her way during her first ever assignment.

Ironically, they ended up working well together. Even at the beginning of her career, Lysithea was capable in a way that even well-seasoned agents were not, and over time, Felix watched her rise through the ranks at a rapid trajectory that reminded him of his own. He wasn't alone in that observation either, hearing whispers at the water cooler that Rhea favored her in the same way as she did Felix.

But Felix had never been able to confirm that Lysithea was like him. Talented? Perhaps. Gifted? Still to be seen.

"Are you listening to me? Just because you're my senior doesn't mean you can ignore me."

Relentless? Absolutely.

Felix stands, neatly arranging his papers by tapping them on the desk. "I'm not retyping a third of my report just because of one small formatting error," he replies. "In fact, you should worry about your own. You're crumpling it, which is technically a violation of section 352.19 of our handbook." He hides a small smile as he sees Lysithea clench her report even tighter.

When they go to submit their paperwork, the man who stands at the front of the room frowns slightly, his green eyes flickering with disapproval. "Normally, I wouldn't approve these reports," Seteth mutters, his tone even and emotionless as usual. He drops the reports into the bin with a sigh of resignation. "But Rhea has special assignment for both of you that cannot wait. Please follow me."

Felix trails down the hall after Seteth, ignoring the poisonous look Lysithea shoots him when Seteth mentions that the sub-par reports will not be forgotten during their upcoming performance review. He had hit the highest pay-grade for agents some time ago, and the money never really mattered to him. Instead, his mind was already on to the next assignment. It was unusual for Rhea to be present when assignments were given. He was curious to know when and where it would take him.

Rhea is not in her office when Felix takes a seat in front of a large, beautiful oak desk. He mentally notes that this chair is more comfortable, cushioned with a slightly curved back that fit the natural bend of his spine. Lysithea sits next to him in an identical chair, though her attention is elsewhere. Once Seteth had left, she had snatched a handful of golden chocolate coins from a glass bowl on Rhea's desk. She stowed most of them away for later, but she couldn't resist peeling away the foil from one and popping it into her mouth.

Felix raises an eyebrow when she hums in satisfaction. "What?" Lysithea asks when she notices Felix's expression. A small crease appears between her brows and her nose wrinkles slightly. "I've heard you make worse sounds over a ham sandwich," she said, her tone defensive and stare withering. Felix opens his mouth to respond but stops when the door swings open and Rhea enters. Lysithea chokes silently as she tries to hastily swallow the chocolate before the CEO of Temps Aeternalis can notice.

"Welcome." Rhea beams at both of them as she enters the room. As usual, she is dressed immaculately, all sharp lines and neat folds. Today, she has on white jacket with black trim and a matching pencil skirt expertly tailored to fall just above her knee. She had further accessorized the outfit with a black scarf tied around her neck, elbow length gloves, and a headpiece with a birdcage veil.

Her stiletto heels clicked sharply against the floor as she made her way towards her desk. "I'm so glad to have my best agents back safely. I trust that your last assignment went well." Her sea-foam eyes look at them serenely with a matching smile. "I know you've only just finished your reports, but I'm afraid I have to send you two back out into the field immediately. Those at the infinite switchboard have detected a... unique anomaly in the timeline."

Felix brow furrows slightly, her strange choice of words were not lost on his ears. "What do you mean?" he asks.

Rhea pulls out a large, manila envelop, answering him by placing a large stack of papers onto the desk and sliding them forward. When Felix looks down, he sees a portrait of a red-haired man, features arranged in an expression of effortless arrogance. Only one honey brown eye looks back at him, the other closed in a wink. His lips were curved into a smile that showed his teeth in a way that Felix could only describe as sinful. A strange feeling begins to spread through his chest as he studies the portrait, thrumming under his skin and teasing at the edges of his mind. 

"Who is he?" he asked, working to keep the usual bored tone in his voice.

When Rhea doesn't immediately respond, Felix looks up and almost flinches as he sees her gaze bore into him with an intense and unreadable emotion. "You may already realize that this is a very special case." she murmurs, her eyes not leaving him through the netting of her headpiece.

"The man you see before you has become the most dangerous man in the universe. His name is Sylvain Jose Gautier."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who may be unfamiliar with the Umbrella Academy, here is some additional context:
> 
> \- Temps Aeternalis is an organization overseeing, and managing the space-time continuum. Their main job is to make sure that all events that are supposed to happen, happen.  
> \- To do this, they monitor the timeline through a device called the "infinite switchboard" and they have agents ready to travel through time and to eliminate anyone who poses a threat.  
> \- Agents are highly trained assassins who are assigned tasks by management and travel through time using briefcases. Their standard uniform is a black suit and tie.  
> \- Within the universe, there are also individuals who are born with unique powers. These people are typically targeted by Temps Aeternalis due to the high risk they pose to the timeline.
> 
> Thank you again for reading! If you are enjoying it so far, a kudos or comment would mean a lot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix and Lysithea plan their next move.
> 
> Or,
> 
> Felix and Lysithea share exactly one (1) braincell.

It's humid and raining when they arrive in Berlin, Germany on June 5th, 2015. Felix and Lysithea duck into the nearest motel, check in, stow away their few belongings. Their room is dingy and small, but only slightly worse than what the two agents were used to. Temps Aeternalis had a very strict guidelines on what could be expensed to their accounts which left their employees on a shoe string budget. Felix usually didn't mind, but he had felt unsettled from the moment they left Rhea's office and the sour smell of their room did nothing to improve his mood.

Lysithea must have felt similar, her nose wrinkling as she kicked her briefcase underneath the bed. "Let's find somewhere else to strategize. I actually thought I saw a coffee shop on our way here, just around the corner."

Felix scoffs as he watches Lysithea cross the room to close the blinds. Although her tone is casual, he knows the junior agent always has an angle. He admits that he isn't always able to find a reason to her rhyme, but this one was clear - where there is coffee, there are sweets.

"Fine. I suppose I could use some caffeine since we may have a long night ahead of us," he replies. He rolls his eyes when he sees the corner of Lysithea's mouth go up and heads toward the door.

As they make their way down the gloomy street, their last conversation with Rhea echoes in Felix's head. They had run through the standard details that came with each new assignment - time, location, known aliases. Felix had stomped down his initial unease once they returned to their familiar routine. He did raise an eyebrow when he heard Sylvain’s estimated body count, interest peaking when he learned that a handful of fellow agents were included in the number. It wasn’t until Rhea’s final words that the uneasy feeling began to gnaw at him again, the command to not only find Sylvain Jose Gautier, but to bring him back - alive - at all costs.

Because in the countless years Felix had worked for Rhea, his assignments were always to exterminate any threat to the timeline. The fates of those who landed in Temps Aeternalis’ crosshairs were synonymous with being wiped clean from existence. And was it really a surprise? Mercy didn’t exist in their work when one loose thread could unravel the entire timeline. So then why, Felix wondered, would Rhea want the most dangerous man in the universe delivered to her with his heart still beating in his chest?

He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the thought. It never mattered to him what Rhea's motives were before, so why should it now? They enter the coffee shop, the bell chiming to cheerfully announce their entrance. Once they find their table and get settled, he pulls out a stack of papers and hands half to Lysithea. She puts down her fork reluctantly, having just started to enjoy an apple strudel with a cup of equally sugary coffee. They page through the documents together. Felix pauses when he gets to the overview of Sylvain's strengths and weaknesses. The list is long for the former, further reinforced by a photo collage of agents who Sylvain had disposed of. Despite the bloody sight, Felix momentarily wonders what poor intern was given the task of preparing their report.

"If those victims weren't part of Temps Aeternalis, I would have guessed it was one of our own agents who performed these kills," Lysithea muses, squinting at the photos. 

Felix blinks, looking closer before he sees the pattern across the page: a single bullet to the head, a clean cut across the throat, a knife between the ribs. He had to admit that it was impressive; it was hard to kill people like them, let alone in such a cold and efficient way. "Rhea did say he was dangerous. It will be nice to actually have a worthy opponent for once." A small smile of anticipation crosses his lips. It had been so long since he had been given a challenge.

"What odd weaknesses." Lysithea moved to the next page while taking another bite of her dessert. "Small spaces and bodies of water..." She scoffs. "How childish."

Felix takes a sip of coffee to hide the amused expression on his face. Lysithea would not appreciate him pointing out the irony of her observation being made made mid-chew with crumbs on her cheeks. He knew better than to poke a sleeping bear... or on second thought, maybe he didn't. 

"Almost on the same tier as ghosts, don't you think?" he asks wryly.

Felix sees Lysithea's knuckles go white before he feels her foot connect with his shin, making him wince. "The audacity! You've got some real nerve implying that I'm like a child."  
  
He snickers, ruefully reaching down to rub his stinging shin. When Lysithea’s gaze only gets harder, he raises his hands as if in surrender. "I would never," he says quickly. “I’d be a fool to underestimate the best and brightest of Temps Aeternalis. Anyway, let's get back to the assignment. We should figure out where we're going."

Lysithea huffs, and for a moment it looks like she's about to kick him again. Instead, she shuffles through the papers.

"It looks like he'll be at a nightclub tonight. Berghain..." The name rolls clumsily over her tongue. "Have you heard of it before?" When Felix shakes his head, she continues to flip through the pages of their report. A low whistle escapes her lips. "It looks very exclusive..."

Felix leans in to read the long list of instructions on how to get into the club. A crease appears between his brows as his eyes scan the page. "Wear black, know the DJ, don't wear boat shoes," he mutters to himself before looking back at Lysithea. "Some of these instructions don't even make sense. Right here it says to look more gay, and then later it says to look less gay."

Lysithea shrugs. "I didn't write this list. I suppose we'll have to flip a coin for that one." When he scoffs, she narrows her eyes. "Do you have a better idea?" When he doesn't reply, she pulls out a coin. "Heads: more gay. Tails: less gay."

She flicks the rounded piece of metal into the air, and they watch with bated breath as it twists in the air. It makes a soft clink as it strikes the table before settling. When they see how the coin lands, another beat of silence passes. Lysithea downs the rest of her coffee before slamming the mug on the table. "Well then, I guess that's that."


	3. Chapter 3

Felix is grouchy by the time they get near the entrance of Berghain. They had been standing in line for hours, and although it was summer, there was an unseasonable chill in the night air. He could feel the breeze run along his bare arms, and it only made him more self-aware of how ridiculous he must look.

The coin had landed on heads, meaning the two agents had opted to look "more gay." That combined with their small budget made them agree they needed to be resourceful. To Felix, that had meant stealing. To Lysithea, that had meant destroying his spare uniform. Before he could even react, she had ripped off the sleeves off of his suit and cut his trousers into shorts. He had been livid when she flung them into his face.

"Stop glaring at me. You're going to put off the bouncer," Lysithea chided, snapping him back to the present. "And don't rub at your eyes. You're going to ruin the eyeliner."

Felix let out a harsh breath as he looked at her. Apparently Lysithea hadn’t seen the need to take shears to her uniform for an acceptable outfit. She had simply opted to go without her suit jacket, rolling up the sleeves of her white shirt and tucking it neatly into her waistband. She had also managed to dredge up a bow tie, suspenders, and a fedora that contrasted sharply with her snowy hair. When Felix had shot her an accusing look, she had simply spouted some nonsense about how “ladies love other ladies in suspenders.” Ridiculous.

Felix sighed as they finally reached the front of the line. He eyed the large bouncer, who stood at least 6’3” with arms as big as Lysithea’s waist. His imposing look was contrasted by his bright eyes and large smile, though Felix had watched him turn others away with the same friendly look for the past hour.

When asked how many were in their party, Lysithea took the lead. “Zwei,” she said in an uncharacteristically sweet tone. Felix tried his best not to glare as the large man looked him up and down. After a moment, they were beckoned forward. Felix smirked when he heard the bouncer say that she reminded him of her little sister as they passed. Luckily, Felix’s German was better than Lysithea’s, and and his words must have been lost on the junior agent for her to continue into the club with no issue.

The minute they crossed the threshold of the former power plant, it was as if they stepped into another universe. Techno music filled the massive room, pounding through the floors and reverberating up the concrete pillars sixty feet high. Bodies at various states of undress writhed against each other on the dance floor while others were tucked away in the shadows. As they continued further, the smell of sweat, urine, and other fluids hit him like a truck. It was somewhat reminiscent of their motel room, much to Felix's dismay.

He looks down at Lysithea, her expression dazed as the bright colored lights reflect off her pale eyes and hair. "Let's try to keep a low profile," he yells.

"How the hell are we going to find him in a place like this?" she yells back. Felix scans the area, wondering if they could split up to cover more ground. However, his plan is quickly dashed when a half-naked man begins to make his way towards them. Lysithea bares her teeth, immediately reaching for the well hidden dagger she had managed to slip by security.

Felix quickly grabs her wrist. "Stay close and follow me."

He quickly pulls Lysithea along with him, moving away from the dance floor and into the labyrinth-like halls. His head swims as he tries to make a plan, focus slipping as music pounds through his skull. He grits his teeth before decisively heading toward the upper floor, figuring they could begin at the top and work their way down.

The two agents end up wandering for hours with no luck, but Felix couldn’t be sure of exactly how long. The surreal atmosphere of the club made time stretch and warp around them. He can feel exhaustion wash over him as he peers into yet another room, no longer phased at the x-rated activities that play out in front of him. Felix is just about to call it a night when he sees a flash of red hair duck into a room down the hall, and on instinct, he pushes through the crowd toward the door.

He only pauses when he realizes Lysithea was no longer trailing behind him. He glances around, wondering when and where they could have been separated. For a split second, he considers leaving to find her before quickly shoving the thought away. Lysithea was more than capable of taking care of herself, and he had worked as a lone wolf for the majority of his assignments. Once Sylvain was captured, they would have an opportunity regroup back at the motel.

Captured. Felix’s mind snags on the word and the uneasy feeling slams back into him like a wave.

Bring him back - alive - at all costs.

Earlier questions begin to swarm in his head once again, this time at a dizzying speed. Why was this assignment so unlike the others, and why was he so suddenly unlike himself? Felix had never cared, never asked, never hesitated until now. And upon acknowledging that truth, his anger rose in a desperate defiance. He was Felix fucking Fraldarius, the top agent of Temps Aeternalis.

Without another thought, he grits his teeth and kicks open the door. When his eyes land on Sylvain, his first observation is that their report hadn't done the man any justice. Sylvain Jose Gautier is alone, sprawled out lazily on one of the plush couches wearing only a leather harness and black jeans that hung low on his hips. The grainy photo had left out small details like the way his lashes framed his eyes and freckles trailed across soft skin. His auburn hair fell messily across his forehead, stopping just above honey-brown irises.

Felix lets himself linger for only a few seconds before he clears his throat, because he's a professional after all. "I'm here for Sylvain Gautier."

“Wow,” Sylvain replies, voice almost reverent as his gaze hungrily roams over Felix. “Hilda has really outdone herself for my birthday.” The man hastily pulls himself off the couch, looking more than pleased as he closes the distance between. “You look just like him,” he says with a wink.

Felix freezes in surprise at their proximity, mind racing trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. He had been met by past marks with a range of emotions from fear to confusion to anger, but never... Felix couldn't quite place the emotion. But when he feels a hand graze over his backside, his surprise leaves him and instinct takes over. He jerks away and hisses, his fist connecting with Sylvain’s jaw. The redhead stumbles back into couch with a groan with a dazed look on his face, but Felix leaves him no time before he's on him again. His next strike sinks into the cushion, inches away from Sylvain's face as he shifts at the very last second.

"We can get rough if you want baby, but I'd prefer not to mess up my dashing good looks."

Felix's vision goes red at the pet name. He straightens his back to move into a proper fighting stance, watching Sylvain do the same across the room. He's ready when Sylvain steps forward and swings. He blocks it easily, redirecting the blow and stepping outside to land a punch to the ribs. He smirks when he hears a soft grunt, though he quickly finds himself off balance when he barely blocks a knee to his groin.

So he was going to fight dirty. Felix rights himself and drops into a crouch. He swings his leg out, catching Sylvain's ankle with his heel and knocking him unsteady. Sylvain may have strength on his side, but Felix was faster. As he tumbles toward the ground, Felix catches him by the throat mid air and slams him into the wall. 

"You're better than I thought," Sylvain gasps out with a wink.

Felix lets out a small laugh in disbelief that Sylvain was flirting even now. "And you're entirely average."

"You shouldn't underestimate me." He shows his teeth in a combination of a smile and grimace. "In fact, this is sure to impress."

What happens next leaves Felix speechless. Sylvain _disappears_ , and his fist closes in on empty air. He stares at the wall in confusion, jerking when he feels a tap on his shoulder.

"Behind you," Sylvain whispers, so close that Felix could feel his hot breath ghost over his ear. He disappears again when the agent whips around. Felix's eyes widen as Sylvain reappears leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. When the redhead beckons him forward with two fingers, he growls.

They fall into another dance, trading sharp remarks and dirty shots. He admits that it makes things significantly more difficult when your enemy can warp in and out of space. Felix can feel his frustration growing as his fist hits empty air for what felt like the hundred time that night, but he begins to notice signs that he's not the only one growing tired. Sylvain is breathing hard, sweat glistening on his chest and reflecting the strange lights of the club. His warps grow fewer and farther between, making Felix take a guess that there is a limit to the strange ability.

When Sylvain finally slips up again, Felix is merciless. He slams his head against the edge of a table, making the empty glass bottles rattle and a crack ring through the air. When the redhead finally crumples to the ground, Felix smiles slightly in satisfaction. It was a good fight, but Felix was the best of the best. He crouches down to grab Sylvain by the roots of his hair, pulling meanly to get a better look at his face. "Next time, bring a friend," he says smugly. His expression only falters when a huff of laughter escapes the redhead's lips.

"Funny you should say that," Sylvain replies, his half-lidded gaze focusing on something beyond of agent.

When Felix follows his line of sight, he finds a girl with bubblegum pink hair and a mischievous smile on her face. "Hi there," she says sweetly. She takes a single step back when Felix swipes at her, a pout forming on her lips.

“Careful,” Sylvain says quickly. “We may need to skip the introductions tonight.” He winces when Felix’s grip tightens as he tries to pull away.

The girl shrugs with a sigh. She toys with a couple strands of her hair before flicking them lazily behind her shoulder. When her gaze settles on Felix again, he can see her pupils dilate in the shifting lights.

“I heard a rumor that you had a little too much to drink tonight."

For the second time that night, Felix finds himself in disbelief when the world begins to tilt and nausea blooms in his stomach. The edges of his vision blur, and the music becomes deafening in his ears. The girl’s lilting words echo inside his skull, twisting and distorting reality to her whims as his back hits the floor.

“What did you do to me?” he tries to growl, but it comes out in a slur. He tries to find his footing, but the room continues to spin around him. So this is how it ends, he thinks grimly. Outnumbered and outclassed in a filthy nightclub. Felix can only wait as the girl helps Sylvain back to his feet. He waits for the knife to run across his throat or sink between his ribs. But the sharp bite of metal never comes, only darkness softly creeping into his periphery.

Sylvain is standing over Felix again, staring down at him with the same earlier emotion that Felix can't place. The agent struggles to find the words to describe it, chasing them down only to feel them slip just past his grasp. But Felix is nothing if not determined, and as his consciousness fades, he commits every detail of Sylvain's honey-brown eyes to his memory before falling into oblivion.


	4. Chapter 4

Sylvain can feel the blood running down his temple as the girl helps him to his feet, an exasperated huff escaping her lips. "Thanks. I owe you one," he says, shooting her one of his signature winks before his gaze falls back to the unconscious Felix on the floor. "Although, don't you think it was a little mean to rumor him to the point of being black out drunk? You could have just made him fall asleep."

The pink haired girl waves him off. "Oh, you don't have to thank me. I wasn't going to just stand by while you were getting your butt kicked." She leaned over to get a closer look at Felix, nudging him lightly with her foot as if to confirm he was really out. “It’s not every day that someone gets the best of you. This must be a special someone?"

Sylvain lets out a humorless chuckle, carefully letting his features fall back into his usual lazy arrogance. "I don't know what you're talking about. There's no one more special to me than you, Hilda."

He's met an eye roll. For all of her own pretty lies, Hilda Valentine Goneril is one of the few who could see straight through him. Sylvain thinks it’s because their too alike - charming others with their charades in hopes for a good time they can lose themselves in. He relaxes slightly as an affectionate smile crosses her lips, worried for a moment that she was going to push for a real answer. Hilda rarely took anything seriously, but when she did apply herself, she was unstoppable.

"He's almost cute when he's unconscious,” she muses. “Although, his fashion sense is a bit lacking.”

When Sylvain crouches down to get a closer look at Felix, he can’t help but agree. The agent’s expression is soft and unguarded in his sleep; pale skin smoothed free of the earlier night's tension and raven strands falling messily over closed eyes. He’s half tempted to reach out and push them away, having forgotten just how pretty Felix was. But Sylvain isn’t able to ignore the more unfortunate details of the man before him, namely the (interestingly modified) uniform that all Temps Aeternalis agents wore. “As much as I'd like to admire the view, we should get out of here," Sylvain sighs. Where there was one, there were always others.

However, his body seems to have other plans as the floor suddenly falls away from him. Sylvain is mildly impressed when Hilda catches him, throwing his arm over her shoulder while digging her heels into the floor. "Ugh," she mutters, wrinkling her nose. "If I had known that going out with you tonight was going to be so much work, I would have skipped." Her tone is dismissive, but Sylvain catches the brief flash of concern in her eyes.

"What can I say. Your beauty just knocks me off my feet. I think I'm even seeing stars," he says, sweet and only half joking. He leans his head on Hilda's shoulder, feeling it shake slightly as she lets out a snort.

"And you're getting blood on my outfit. You _so_ owe me."

The two stumble outside of the club and down a dim alley, looking only slightly ridiculous as Hilda's small frame half supported Sylvain. Luckily, it was the strange, liminal time of day when the night owls had gone to bed and early birds had not yet risen. They wind through the streets undisturbed, both uncharacteristically silent until they reach a beautiful, if not somewhat dilapidated, mansion.

"Home, sweet home." Sylvain mutters under his breath.

They reach the second floor before Hilda unceremoniously dumps him onto the hallway floor. She sighs dramatically before knocking on the door exactly four times. "I think I'm well overdue for my beauty sleep," she says with a yawn before the same small but affectionate smile crosses her lips. "Goodnight, Sylvain."

He watches her disappear down the hall, a flash of pink in the blue light before she's completely gone. With a sigh, he drags himself back to his feet for at least the third time that night. As far as birthdays go, Sylvain puts this somewhere between Annette blowing up the kitchen trying to make his cake and Dimitri having mistaken him for the piñata. He winces at the latter, remembering just how close he'd been to becoming one of his ghosts. And yet, it was a simpler time. One he would relive readily and trade almost anything to return to if it meant-

Sylvain's thoughts are interrupted when the door opens with a creak. He does his best to put on a carefree smile, but it falters under the gentle, periwinkle eyes that meet his own. "Sorry to bother you at this time of night, Mercedes."

The ashen blonde girl only smiles serenely back at him before opening the door wider and beckoning him in. It's not the first time Sylvain has shown up at her door, broken in the middle of the night, and they both knew it wouldn't be the last. She leads him to a bench at the end of her bed, her fingers running along his scalp as she assesses the damage. "Oh, Sylvain...” she murmurs with a small sigh. “What happened?”

A soft glow emits from her fingertips as the sharp pain in his skull begins to dull. Sylvain runs through the list of his usual lies when Mercedes’ moves down to the bruises along his throat. His mind flashes to Felix’s fingers digging into his skin earlier that night, a sharp contrast to Mercedes’ light touch in the present. Suddenly, he’s too tired for anything short of honesty.

“I finally found Felix... Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that he found me.”

It's Mercedes' smile that falters this time. Sylvain watches her closely as she processes his words, her delicate features mirroring his own emotions when he had first seen Felix: stark disbelief and reckless hope. But unlike Sylvain, she reads the room faster, and it isn’t long before her expression settles into one of grim disappointment and familiar pity. “After all these years,” she whispers. “I’m guessing it wasn’t the reunion you imagined then.”

A bitter laugh escapes Sylvain before he can stop it. When Sylvain had finally realized there was no recognition in Felix's sharp gaze, it had felt like he had been run clean through by a blade. "I thought I had imagined every scenario, but... It was like he doesn't even remember me, Mercie."

When her frown deepens, Sylvain looks away. He focuses on the wisps of light dancing along the horizon as the sun begins to rise. Silence fills the room as Mercedes continues her work. She doesn't speak again until the throbbing in his head is completely gone and the healing light dies. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I'm here if you do."

Sylvain remains quiet as he considers the offer. Although he was no longer battered and bruised, the temptation to stay a little longer with Mercedes pulls at him. Were it anyone else, Sylvain would have already been gone. After all, his specialty was literally disappearing into thin air. But Mercedes was not just anyone. She had a special and subtle way of disarming him.

_Yo_ _u actually look more handsome to me with honesty on your face._

Her words from a particularly bad night run through his mind, and they carry away any last traces of hesitation. Sylvain is not quite sure where to start though, so after a moment, he goes for the very beginning.

"I thought he was just another stripper," he admits sheepishly.

He blinks in surprise when a small laugh escapes Mercedes' lips, but he only returns her hasty apology with a small smile. Despite the rough and unexpected turn of events that had occurred in the past couple hours, Sylvain couldn't deny the irony of it all. He continues recounting the details of his outing to Mercedes up until he moment Hilda dumps him at her door. It's only when the sun had fully risen above the horizon does he finish his story with a yawn.

“Oh Sylvain,” Mercedes says again, having listened with sincere attentiveness. She reaches out to pat his cheek lightly. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it to the end of this chapter thank you for reading! <3 I struggled a bit with this one since Sylvain is such a complex character who I want to do right by. I debated on scrapping this and continuing on with Felix's POV, but I think Sylvain's character deserves so much love and comfort.


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